The Pilot Projects Program (PPP) is an important benefit of CEHS membership. Since the inception of the Center, the PPP has been viewed as a central activity of the Center. The mission of the PPP is to provide seed money to Center members to enhance their ability to obtain outside funding In a new innovative area of environmentally related research, preferably In a multi-disciplinary context. As described below, the program has been used primarily to foster the development of: (1) junior faculty who are developing a research program in an area of environmental health research of relevance to the Center;(2) to assist senior faculty members shift to new areas of environment research;(3) attract new investigators to apply their expertise to an environmentally related health problem;and (4) physician/scientists. These aims have driven our annual Program, including the announcements of the availability of the pilot project awards, the application review process, as well as the selection of pilot project awardees. The ultimate goal of the pilot project program is to invest in and support the development of investigators that will generate external funding to address significant problems in environmental health. To this end, our award recipients have been very successful in obtaining funding for applications subsequently submitted to external agencies, usually utilizing data generated as part of the PPP, despite the modest amount of each single pilot project award (see below). The Center's investment of $1,294,297 (for years 2001 through 2008) has yielded more than 28 times that amount of direct funding (= $36,931,902) to PPP Awardees from external sources, as shown below. In addition, publications resulting from the PPP awards continue to increase (n = 56), also shown below. These successes of our PPP investigators are reviewed below under the section on "Accomplishments."